I think the foot king has no idea what it could cost. lol

Wrong.

Maybe read up on Blue Cross Blue Shield before you make these comments chief. I obvioulsy have.

In Michigan, they are a non-profit, and they DO sign up anyone. Terminal or not. However you have to wait the 6 month grace period of whatever.

Good luck on that whole reading and researching thing toots.
http://www.bcbsm.com/myblue/buyout_faq.shtml

Nah, I realize, and will add it back on later. Right now, just annoyed with the system.

I hear BCBS is coming out with something that COVERS preventive care (single, self employed), i.e. doctor visits, this next year. If that is the case, then will add it back on because I actually get some value from it then.

I think you are way off base on this one. I have asthma and I cannot buy health insurance that will cover it. None of them will sell it to me. I have talked to every one of them that I could find. I can get insurance, just no coverage for a preexisting condition. So if you think you will go back to Blue Cross and in 6 months they will cover you for cancer, you might want to rethink that because I am 99.9% sure they will not.

Here is the irony. You could, potentially, get a job with a company that gives you insurance and in 6 months they may start covering a preexisting condition. In the past before I was self employed that was the case. The companies I worked for would give me health insurance, I just had to wait 3-6 months for them to start covering me. That asthma, when it is controlled like mine, isn't a bank breaker. It could cost them a few hundred dollars a month. Cancer could cost them a million so there is a strong chance you couldn't even get coverage through a major companies policy.

The reason is simple. When you are part of a large group they make money off those that don't use the service. For ever 1 person that has prescriptions and uses the insurance regularly there are 50 or more that hardly ever use it so they still make money. When you are on a policy by yourself they don't make money if you actually plan to use it. This is why if you have any preexisting condition they won't cover it.

You're talking about a government subsidized policy chief. Not insurance. We have the same thing here in TN. It's just privatized medicare/medicaid.

No. You would be off base on this one.

I did not only read this on the website to point to ole off base chief. My insurance agent told me what I just told you. BCBS of MI is the only one who will cover you if terminal, or preexisting. As well BCBS did when I asked them about this issue when canceling my insurance. I specially asked them on both cancer (since I used to chew) and diabetes, and they told me, themselves, 180 days if I do not come back to them with insurance form a previous carrier.

I am not 'spit balling' my answers like many in this thread. I actually heard it from them.

Well, it looks like you live in a state that has some kind of deal with Blue Cross. I contacted them about getting insurance int he state I live in and they turned me down (well, they would accept me, they just wouldn't pay for any asthma related costs.)

Save The Scales!

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_7YBlR90cBBs/R1...0/DSC_0308.JPG

Yep government subsidized policy. The company takes the profit on policies and write off the losers. Either way they profit and the tax payer loses. So we're back to the pay for a warranty when your car breaks down.

Riiiiiiight.

http://www.bcbs.com/about/
http://www.bcbs.com/about/faq/

I think you are confusing the fact the adminstrator of Medicare. Not medicare. Here is a little more reading for you toots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_cross_blue_shield

While they can vary from state to state on profit, versus non-profit. I can only speak on Michigan's.

AfterShock or someone out west has talked about their BCBS. It does vary from state to state on some of the coverages. I wanna say that thread was last year.

Some are very dramatic changes from SE to SW BCBS versus Michigan's.

No.

We are back to you learning to read.

Good luck with that whole, know it all, and reading thing.

Like I said we have the same thing here. BCBS even. It's government subsidized. It's just at the state level. Medicaid/medicare is at the federal level. Either way tax dollars pay. 6 months into cancer will break pretty much anyone "toots" good luck.

It might be worth me looking into them again. When I last looked at blue cross it was probably 4 years or more ago.

Thanks for the info. I don't know if my state has changed things, but it is worth checking out.

Or live in Michigan for 6 months of the year. Then you can get coverage here. :winkwink:

well you shouldnt have to pay $175 for sitting in a waiting room and seeing a doctor for 10 minutes

True. I wonder if they would let me just rent one of those mail boxes and call it my permanent Michigan address ")

If that.

Sometimes I will see them 10-20 minutes, but typically, I spend more time with the nurse and her weighing, blood pressure, breath in and out, light in the ear, and telling her what is wrong then I do with the DR.

DR comes in. Says I hear you have... does some shit, then starts with the scripts, or tests they want, and I have to walk down the hall to get them. Once done, I come back, DR already looks at whatever (xray, blood test, etc.), then comes in and tells me what they think it is.

Hand me scripts and a bill, and send me on my way.

Dunno on that one. You know how insurance companies can be.

I had asked them on that (residency) as well. I am planning to move out of state full or part time within 5 years (hopefully) for the west coast. They told me I have to be in MI at least 6 months of the year to keep my insurance.

True, but the State of Michigan helps subsidize those costs. So in a way, the health insurance industry there is socialized.

I was having some chest soreness awhile back. I had been to the ER and they gave me a clean bill of health. But I scheduled an appointment with my doctor to get a real diagnosis. The nurses spent about 15 minutes taking blood pressure and all the other stuff. Doctor came in for literally a minute, listened to my heart for a second and wrote me a prescription for an acid reducer. My insurance company got billed like $150.

Yep. I know exactly what you mean there.

The lone exception to that example I, and you, gave is this one bitchy DR at my place. She has no... what is the term.... bedside manner. But she is good.

A couple of years ago I had a sinus infection from hell. I went to the DR's and they gave me an antibiotic, but it was the wrong kind (viral versus fungus or something?) and so I suffered for a week and it got a lot worse to the point I had to go into immediate care.

Basically my throat had almost swollen shut and I had stopped breathing a few times, and almost passed out before getting to the phone or catching my breath. Anyways, drove straight to the immediate care, and they gave me another antibiotic. Wrong again. Two weeks later, I was back to the status I was on my first visit.

I get the bitch (I have had her before). I tell her what up. She spends the time listening, I tell her my other DR experiences on this over the month. Her remark, "Yeah. Well I kinda like to know what the problem is before I write scripts".

She sends me down for Xrays, and I was almost at the point of phenomena with all the liquid on my lungs and air pockets in my sinuses or whatever. Anyways, she switch the antibiotic to whatever the other kind was. Within two weeks, problem gone.

Never had a bad sinus infection like that in two years. Funny. I was having 2-3 a year prior to that. Just goes to show you. Even the BEST, insurance covered care, doesn't really mean shit in the end.

Total cost, above insurance, $1500+, 45 days to resolve.

I hear that.

Several months ago I needed to get a prescription refilled. I contacted my doctor and was told the doctor I normally see is no longer there. I knew this, but was told any other doc there could see me. I was told since it was a new doctor that I couldn't get a refill without seeing them and the earliest appointment was 10 days away. That wasn't going to work, I only had a couple of days worth of medicine. they won't call in a refill even if I make an appointment. So I end up going to a different doctor just to get a refill prescription just to hold me over until I can get in to the other place.

The visit with this new doctor literally was about 5 minutes. I explained what I needed. She listened to my lungs, wrote me a prescription and I was out the door. It cost me $150 for that 5 minutes. Pretty crazy.

Yeah, I noticed that with my place as well....

$71 to see the DR no script.
$121+ to see DR get any kind of script.
$150+ if I get any kind of referral.. blood test, xrays, etc

Keep in mind, this does not include the cost OF the blood test, xrays, etc. Those bills come later.

Just to show how it's not always the insurance companies fault, I look back at my Mom's nearly one month stay in the hospital. She had doctors that none of us had ever seen billing her for visits. There was one doctor who continued to bill her for daily visits a week after she left the hospital. Other doctors would come in the room, look at her chart, then leave and bill her $130.

It's almost humorous at the end of the day. They see a patient who will be there for awhile with good insurance and jump on it like vultures. Doctors from throughout the hospital were stopping in to check and bill her account. Since she was there for an extended time, they sent a psychiatrist in to make sure she wasn't getting depressed. The psychiatrist spent 30 minutes there and charged her $600. One doctor she had never heard of, never remembered meeting, and had no mention on her chart billed her $1200.

It was the first time in my life I actually felt bad for the insurance companies. They were just getting raped. It did cause my Mom some issues since the insurance company refused to pay for the doctor who billed her for time she wasn't even in the hospital. Took my Mom many calls to this doctor's office and finally a formal complaint to the medical board before he removed the charges.

Guess what I'm saying is that our insurance costs are high not just because these guys want to rip us off, but because doctors are fucking scumbags too.

Completely agree.

A big thank you to Reagan for changing the restrictions on HMO's so they could be FOR PROFIT companies.

:disgust

There is another reason too and that is the non-payers. We have free health care in this country. It is called the ER. If you go to the ER at a public hospital they will see you and treat you. If you don't pay the bill they may try to come after you for it, but if you are poor and have no assets worth going after they just eat the cost. They then pass that cost on to the people that come in with good insurance or that will pay the bill. This is why when they give you two aspirin they charge you $20 for them or why they bill you $30 for one of those little plastic vomit tubs.

Those with insurance or that will pay the bill help make up for everyone that can't or doesn't pay.

I think it's you that's missed the point, toots. I pointed out that you were making a generalisation about people who believe in public health care. I think every country should have a public system. I also think there should be a private system running alongside it. Private health care eases the burden on the public system significantly. Here in Australia, there are even tax incentives to encourage people to get private health cover.

I wonder if America would be a less litigious society if whenever someone fell over walking down the street, they didn't have to sue someone to pay for their medical bills.

Healthcare should be a right because people pay taxes.

i don't know how much you pay for private health care insurance in the US, but for the average man contributing to healthcare for all probably wouldn't cost you anymore than what you pay for private. it probably would cost very big earners some more byt they can afford it.

You act like you're the only one paying taxes in this country. Then bitch about your taxes going to helping out the infrastructure of you economy ie. healthy people when all this time your taxes multiplied by thousands in contrast go to feed a vast military system that does nothing but estrange us from the people we seek to *help*. There is a tremendous inequity and unbalanced system at work here and if you don't see it you are either brain washed or brain dead..

Exactly. If only by eliminating the middle man, insurance company fat cats, it would virtually pay for itself. But Americans have been scared off for decades about the pinkos, reds, hippies etc to the point where they function like automatons and any hint of socialist living which is really just community living is a terrifying idea..

I believe that healthcare and higher education should be free to anyone who pays taxes (or is too poor to pay taxes) because your tax dollars should do something to improve your quality of life, you are forced to pay them and for most middle class people, infrastructure is the only thing they really get out of it. We are willing to spend billions on war, space exploration and ridiculous public works projects (i.e. the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere), but services that would be beneficial to any common person are costly and are only obtained through harsh means such as student loans, which I need to start paying by way, so Sallie Mae will get off my ass)

That is how healthcare works in most countries I can think of that have a form of universal healthcare.

Hyperactivity and insomnia are two very real things.

A better example would be restless leg syndrome(which does exist, but come on...).

Hello Mr. Ginormous Logical Fallacy.

There are so many retarded/unreleated comments in this thread that I'm not going to bother.

i use oodles of health care-
enough actually that it seems i work more for hospitals and doctors than i do for myself-
i am positive i have seen every side and aspect of health care in america-
there does seem to be a lot of odd information in this thread when it comes to american health care-
one thing that is for sure is that you must know the system and the rules or you will end up on the short end-
i absolutely need health care and i for one would not be to thrilled with government ran health care which is what free health care would be-

ah fuck this i am sick of this pc issue and not fix suggestions yet-
i will be back a bit latter after i do a system restore-

I think the misnomer is *free*. Nothing in life is free, no matter what system. Nobody suggests mana from heaven and getting things free, the issue is a centralized health care system that doesn't stop when you change jobs or if you are in between jobs or work for yoursel or has anything to do with your employer.

Another issue is not letting preventative health issues drag on to where they become burdens on society, either because it removes the person(s) from available work pool or that the condition develops into a much more costly situation.

Of course not. You can fund health care systems by taxes, by private health insurences or a national health insurance. You can even offer a mix.

The German way for example is a national health insurance for employees. The dues are deducted from the wages.
As long as you are getting your income from independent work, you are not required to pay for the national health care. But you can pay voluntary contributions. Another way for self employed is the private health insurance. The difference is that the financial contributions are above contributions for the national health care, but the medical attendance is much better. A doctor can earn about as twice as much for the same treatment, you get medicines you wouldn´t get if you´d be member of the national health care system and so on.
If you are not a member of any insurance, you won´t get shit.

The German national health care system is about to collapse. So I´d stick to the private systems.

And to answer the question: health care can´t be free, but the real problem is how to treat those who can´t afford contributions? Will you leave them to rot or is it a social conscience to help them?